USPS is accusing me of mailing a gun when I mailed a barrel
 

I sold a P226 .357SIG barrel only to a guy in FL a few months ago. I foolishly skipped the insurance, though I guess it wouldn't have mattered in the end. I sent it USPS Priority Mail, which includes $50 of insurance. The barrel never arrived. USPS claimed it was delivered, and it may well have been, but the buyer never saw it.

I filed a claim with USPS and instantly lost because they said it was delivered. Oh well, case closed because they claim it was delivered! Such idiots.

I appealed, said it may have been delivered, but it was not delivered to the correct address and the intended recipient never saw it. Their next letter totally ignored my appeal and said I cannot mail guns via USPS and asked for a copy of my FFL. Can you believe this? I appealed again, told them a barrel is not a gun and can be mailed and received in any state via USPS sans FFL. Once again, they ignored that appeal, sent me another letter saying case is closed and reminding me that I cannot mail guns without an FFL. Gee, you'd think if they really thought I mailed a gun sans FFL to another non-FFL, they might want to track down that missing gun.

I refunded the buyer his money, but at this point I just want someone at USPS to acknowledge their utter incompetence and ignorance. Not like my US Senators' staffers will care at all. But I'm getting close to finding someone at USPS on LinkedIn and writing them a longer letter than USPS allows in their 255 character online appeal template. I hate everyone.

I haven't seen any cards (CC, DL, otherwise) in the mail from USPS in months. I get all their junk mail tho.

rjp

Not related to your specific item but I ship daily and learned that each Priority delivery scan creates an internal GPS location upon delivery. This isn't anything you can see as a customer but going to my local post office and politely asking the clerk to check the tracking number they were able to find a package I sent. Like yours it was marked delivered but it was actually delivered across town. In a perfect world the person that incorrectly received the package would give it back to a carrier but in my case the carrier retrieved the package from the incorrect address and re-delivered to the proper address. Worth a shot asking a postmaster at a local PO on your end to help you find a mis-delivered package.

I can’t imagine they’d be disappointed to drive off another citizen-customer, it just helps them focus on their primary business of junk mail and stuff from China.

What Hockey fan said.
I went through the same thing around x-mas. After about 3 weeks later the package magically showed up, but a duplicate shipment was already sent out.

It's a little confusing but (according to what I was told by employees) looking up the tracking number and seeing "Received" doesn't mean actual delivery to an actual address. It doesn't mean received by the local branch office in charge of area mail. It means received by the hub area which could be extensive. I'm not sure why they do it that way.

Items I've purchased off Ebay have been stolen when the item wasn't totally securely packed. Boxes with wrenches have been torn open at the corners (to make it look like damaged during shipping) and of course, all tools inside gone.

When I have to ship USPS I use enough packing tape it's impossible for someone to tear the box open.

Also, look for USPS Informed Delivery- a service where you mail gets scanned and emailed to you daily. At least you can tell what you didn't get, and then file a compliant about it- then, wait.

Do they have any official policy wrt mailing gun parts?

ROFLMAO. That's a great punchline.

It's a bummer that you had that sort of issue.

Reminds me of years ago, when I got my Garand through the old DCM program. Notice in our mailbox a package for me. Cindy went to the local post office to pick it up. Seeing the package, she blurted: "Oh, it's Paul's rifle." Postal clerk phreaked..saying you can't send a rifle through the mail. Cindy just pointed to the return address..."They can." HA! United States Army, department of civilian marksmanship.

My, how times have changed. Not all change is good, eh?

Unless it has changed, you can mail some gun parts, now a complete gun is still a no no.

"432 Mailability | Postal Explorer" https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c4_009.htm

Ha - GREAT story! You GO, Cindy! :p

Good luck with that. I don't mean that in a snippy way, but rather out of sympathy. No one (with any sort of authority) at USPS cares.

Sent two boxes to my son via the Army to his deployment location in Syria. Both sent to the identical APO address. After 6 weeks, one was returned to me indicating invalid address...the second one was delivered to him without issue. Had to pay again and resend.

And in my wife's case, she never received a piece of china she bought on the flea. USPS tracked it down and it was delivered to the next block up to an address one number off that would have put it up in the next block. However the seller was able to prove that they addressed the package correctly. A notice was sent to the address in the next block by USPS and the recipient refused to cooperate instead choosing to keep the package. IOW, stealing it even though it was given to them by mistake.

At this point the USPS told my wife game over, nothing we can do and pound sand. The eBay seller graciously refunded the entire purchase even though not at fault. eBay itself didn't want to take a stand on the issue and participate with their so called "buyers guarantee."

At least we know where one dirtbag lives one block up. I hope the piece has lots of lead in it and they die.

USPS absolute do not care.

They really need to go under. Really.

Went to the UPS store six months ago to ship a wooden rifle stock.
The employee asked me what was I shipping and I told him "A wooden rifle stock."
He said no can do but if you just tell me it is a piece of wood then it is all good.
It shipped but really....?

You can send any part of a gun other than a serialized frame or lower receiver. You can buy Poly80 online all day and have them shipped to your house via USPS. You can buy gun barrels on eBay and from every manufacturer and have them delivered in any state in the US via USPS, no FFL needed. I would be able to live with USPS just insisting they had delivered it and know I'm out the barrel and headache. But some know-nothing, termination-proof postal employee accusing me of mailing a gun and trying to warn me is beyond the pale. I will be pursuing this.

You can't ship guns via USPS? I have, no problems.

I like their new loyalty program. Somehow I've earned $60 of free shipping recently.

Yup. Eff those pieces of crap. I have had more issues with shipping USPS than all other means combined. That’s what happens when you have a government unionized organization competing against private enterprise.

Post master

In Canada, you can either use Canada Post or CanPar to ship firearms. Those are your 2 options.

Interesting the USPS is a NoNo…

Rick Lee..nope cant say i ever heard of him

He/she/it doesn't care, either.

I once filed a complaint. I thought removing a piece of mail from a post office drop box and opening it (when it's not addressed to you) would be some sort of federal offense (let alone the crime behind doctoring a couple checks to make it look like they were made to you when they originally weren't). Apparently what I learned from Cliff Claven isn't true. I even checked off the box that requested a response from the post master. Crickets.

Anyone can ship a long gun via USPS, and parts are just parts. Must have FFL to ship a hand gun though.

^^^That’s why I’ve been able to ship guns through the post office

The USPS is almost as well run as the VA.

I ordered a tool from a company. The shipped it Priority Main, two day delivery. And the had it tracked. The USPS dang near was like a spammer as I reeived about 12 emails that it was shipped and then when all over the country, and was delayed and it took 4 days to arrive. The good news is I was not in a hurry.

If they just shipped it in a logical route, it would have arrived in two days, but I guess they decided to send it all over the country for a nice ride. Fortunately a ball joint socket is too tough for them to damage.

They were especially ridiculous about a year ago. I ordered some amp parts from a local shop with free shipping. Shop is about 25 miles from me. The route that package took went to Yuma, AZ, more than 200 miles out of the way, and then back to the Phoenix area.

this was painful the read. sorry for the trouble.

(knocking on wood) USPS has been excellent service for me thusfar. my achilles shipper is FedEX.

How was it packaged? I order a steering rod for my boat. 3/4" bar about 2' long.
They put it in a bubble pack. Of course the rod broke through the pac and they delivered an empty pac.

Sorry to hear. When they sent you the second letter, how did they assume it was a gun instead of a barrel? Unless you told them what it was, did they open your package, scan it? Package confiscated by the USPS?

Gub theft, but that's their #1 job.

I shipped a bunch of stuff in the medium 2 day express boxes. USPS came after me a month later saying I used the large box, we want more money. Still unresolved months later.

I quit selling parts when 3 out of shock absorbers arrived along with an empty place where the 4th one was. Each was still in original packing but bundled up as one unit.

After a lot of going round and round the orphan shock was found in area where items that drop out of packaging end up. Kinda like the lost and found at the airport when they lose your luggage. Someone had to knock the siht out of the box to have one shock torpedo out.

Even though it worked out finally in 3 weeks or so, it was too much trouble handling the pissed off customer and the shipper. Might have been FedEx, IDR.

I don't miss messing around with used parts, for sure.

Why didn’t you just simply walk over there and demand that they give it to you?

You have to reveal what the item is when filing a claim. I just wrote "SIG Sauer pistol barrel" and further explained in the explanation template. I guess they don't weigh Priorty Mail boxes, but there's no way a real pistol, even a poly one could weigh as little as a barrel and no one would pack even a Derringer in a Small Flat Rate box.

With our family ecom business - we *will not* ship anything via USPS unless the buyer agrees that ALL LIABILITY is between them and the carrier.

...14 years of selling online and USPS has NEVER paid a claim. Not once. They generally lose about 10% of the items we send with them. (did an analysis of 5 years data not long ago).

When did the USPS find out it was gun parts? When you filed your claim?

Sorry

When I built the new shop with my office, the USPS took over 2 YEARS to enter the address assigned by the city into their official book.

All of my vendors and everyone who sends me mail had to communicate via email, not regular mail.

Why? Because the "person who enters official addresses into their book retired". I visited the post office every day for almost 2 months. They were really tired of me. Somehow finally it must have been entered because the mail carriers started bringing my mail. I actually don't think it's really entered, but the post letter carriers all know me and like my store, which is connected to the office on the opposite side. I give the city workers, bus drivers, garbage man, police, fire, and postal carriers free fountain drinks, especially on hot days. It's my way of giving back to the community. Give to the hard working blue collar guys. In my mind someone needs to do something nice for them. And I guess they notice sometimes.

Same here. It's weird reading all of these USPS horror stories...I don't doubt any of them but my experience has been the opposite in multiple locations/states. I've never had a problem getting things delivered to me or to people I sent them to. I've had a few problems over the years with UPS and FedEx, mostly just huge inconvenience of having to drive to their hub to pick up packages they failed to deliver.

I'm a big fan of USPS too. I particularly like their Flat Rate international small boxes.

Every carrier has their issues, here are some I've dealt with:

USPS: 3.0L crank in a 1/2" thick tube with one way pressed in steel ends that dig into the tube when you try to get them out. You have to somewhat destroy an end getting it out with a screwdriver. Someone at USPS wanted a crank because the tube with one end gone came back to me.

UPS: someone opened a box with a pair of heat exchangers, took one out, sealed the box back up and delivered it.

UPS: shipped a pristine barnfind 356 door, like it was taken off in 1970 and stored properly since. Someone drove a forklift into the side of the box badly denting the door.

FedEx: Overnighted a completed set of anodized door frames so a car could be shown at Werks Reunion. Box got to CA, was unloaded, then loaded back onto the plane and went to Memphis where it was lost for a day and then it came back to me and then it was overnighted again to the shop in CA, successfully.

I ship with USPS a lot with a higher than 99% success rate. Only thing I don't use USPS for is 60s Porsche race car and Ferrari stuff.